Alsatian Island
TNPer
- Pronouns
- he/his
- TNP Nation
- Alsatian Island
November 11, 2033
"His Majesty is in hospital."
All Astrid could think was: this has been a long time coming. He's 103, essentially deaf, half-senile and most of all, he'd lost his energy. Even well into his 90s, he possessed a charisma and an energy that even his son's generation lacked by this point.
Time makes fools of us all. Even Astrid, who took pride in being from the "Newboke Generation", those born between 1996 and 2007 and those who grew up with the same President who just wouldn't go away, and who grew up with nearly everything. Nearly.
Of course, being the King's favoured granddaughter - he never said that explicitly but it had been so obvious to anyone with half a mind - she never had this "nearly".
She'd accepted she was out of touch. She'd accepted she was no King Arthur. And she'd accepted - and indeed embraced - that she'd never have the same responsibility. That's someone else's problem.
---
His Majesty, King Arthur VII, of the United Kingdom of Esthursia, lay in a hospital bed drugged up and incontinent.
His closest family members looked down on him. They'd watched him slip from mere seniority to complete inability, and it'd mostly taken place in the last 5 years. Death? It's probable it crossed their minds - but this was King Arthur himself, you'd have to be in your early eighties to remember his coronation. The death of a King? Unprecedented.
And yet there he laid, a shrivelled, grey husk of a man, with tubes sprawled across him, keeping him from slipping - or rather tumbling - into the land of eternal sleep. He was conscious, yes, but blissfully unaware thanks to the morphine. The cancer had progressed to his lungs, and so he clearly didn't have long.
The doctors convened outside. They had the unenviable task of telling the King's own family that he's on his last weeks, at best. They knew the press would start the ball rolling in just days if the King didn't "return" to the Palace, so they knew they'd have to tell the Royal Family in hours. How do you tell the King he's bound for Aetherion?
The machine kept beeping. It's hard to know if that's a good sign or not. The hospital around him buzzed with life, while he lay there, lifeless. The great man who had once led the whole country for 81 years, stood for people and freedom, through thick and thin, no matter what...
... was sprawled across the bed, barely conscious and delirious, all to keep the poor husk that remained out of any preventable pain.
"His Majesty is in hospital."
All Astrid could think was: this has been a long time coming. He's 103, essentially deaf, half-senile and most of all, he'd lost his energy. Even well into his 90s, he possessed a charisma and an energy that even his son's generation lacked by this point.
Time makes fools of us all. Even Astrid, who took pride in being from the "Newboke Generation", those born between 1996 and 2007 and those who grew up with the same President who just wouldn't go away, and who grew up with nearly everything. Nearly.
Of course, being the King's favoured granddaughter - he never said that explicitly but it had been so obvious to anyone with half a mind - she never had this "nearly".
She'd accepted she was out of touch. She'd accepted she was no King Arthur. And she'd accepted - and indeed embraced - that she'd never have the same responsibility. That's someone else's problem.
---
His Majesty, King Arthur VII, of the United Kingdom of Esthursia, lay in a hospital bed drugged up and incontinent.
His closest family members looked down on him. They'd watched him slip from mere seniority to complete inability, and it'd mostly taken place in the last 5 years. Death? It's probable it crossed their minds - but this was King Arthur himself, you'd have to be in your early eighties to remember his coronation. The death of a King? Unprecedented.
And yet there he laid, a shrivelled, grey husk of a man, with tubes sprawled across him, keeping him from slipping - or rather tumbling - into the land of eternal sleep. He was conscious, yes, but blissfully unaware thanks to the morphine. The cancer had progressed to his lungs, and so he clearly didn't have long.
The doctors convened outside. They had the unenviable task of telling the King's own family that he's on his last weeks, at best. They knew the press would start the ball rolling in just days if the King didn't "return" to the Palace, so they knew they'd have to tell the Royal Family in hours. How do you tell the King he's bound for Aetherion?
The machine kept beeping. It's hard to know if that's a good sign or not. The hospital around him buzzed with life, while he lay there, lifeless. The great man who had once led the whole country for 81 years, stood for people and freedom, through thick and thin, no matter what...
... was sprawled across the bed, barely conscious and delirious, all to keep the poor husk that remained out of any preventable pain.